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James J. Strang: The Prophet Who Failed

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Lawrence Foster
Lawrence Foster
Affiliation:
Mr. Foster is assistant professor of American history in the School of Social Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia.
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Extract

The founders of successful religious and social movements have received much attention from popular and scholarly writers. Would-be prophets who failed, on the other hand, generally have been ignored, except for a few sensational cases such as those of Sabbatai Sevi, the Jewish messianic pretender of the seventeenth century, or Jim Jones, whose charismatic leadership of a group suicide in Guyana shocked the nation and the world. Yet although religious leaders who fail usually attract little attention, they are often as interesting as those who succeed. Their lives vividly highlight aspects of new religious and social movements which we might otherwise overlook. One of the most remarkable religious failures in nineteenth- century America was James J. Strang, the schismatic Mormon prophet who set up a community of 2,500 on Beaver Island in Lake Michigan and ruled it for nearly ten years until he was assassinated in 1856. Strang was articulate and capable, a compelling intellect and speaker who seemed totally sincere to some yet an utter fraud to others. His life raises fundamental questions about the promise and the dangers inherent in prophetic leadership, not simply in early Mormonism but in many similar movements as well.

Type
Research Article
Information
Church History , Volume 50 , Issue 2 , June 1981 , pp. 182 - 192
Copyright
Copyright © American Society of Church History 1981

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References

1. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the annual meeting of the Mormon History Association in Lamoni, Iowa, on 28 May 1979. Portions of the paper also appear in my book, Religion and Sexuality: Three American Communal Experiments of the Nineteenth Century. Copyright © 1981 by Oxford University Press, Inc. Used by arrangement. Among the major sources consulted for this paper are Milo Quaife, M., The Kingdom of Saint James (New Haven, Conn., 1930),Google Scholar the only scholarly biography of Strang; Morgan, Dale L., “A Bibliography of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints [Strangite],” Western Humanities Review 5 (Winter 1950–1951): 42–114,Google Scholar an exhaustive annotated bibliography of Strangite publications; and the James J. Strang Papers in the Coe Collection of the Beinecke Library at Yale University, an extremely rich source comprising 544 lots, most of which are four-page letters in foolscap, but many of which are documents of greater length or are lots that contain several related letters. I am grateful for the assistance of Archibald Hannah, Curator of Western Americana at the Beinecke Library, and for the hospitality of Klaus and Joan Hansen and their family, which made possible extensive research in the Strang Papers. Strang's own writings are an essential source, since he is his own most eloquent interpreter. See especially, Strang, Mark A., ed., The Diary of James J. Strang:Deciphered, Transcribed, Introduced and Annotated (Ann Arbor, Mich., 1961);Google Scholar the Strangite newspapers, the Voree Herald and the Northern Islander; Strang, James J., The Diamond: Being the Law of Prophetic Succession, and a Defense of the Calling of James J. Strang as Successor to Joseph Smith (Voree, Wis., 1848)Google Scholar; idem, The Prophetic Controversy: A Letter from James J. Strang to Mrs. Corey (Saint James, Mich., 1856); and Watson, Wingfield, ed., The Revelations of James J. Strang ([Boyne, Mich., 1885]).Google Scholar Also essential is Strang's eloquent Book of the Law of the Lord (Saint James, Mich., 1856).Google Scholar Only a handful of secondary treatments are of significant interest. Among these, see Legler, Henry E., A Moses of the Mormons (Milwaukee, Wis., 1897);Google Scholar Dale L. Morgan, “Summary Description of the Strang Manuscripts,” in the Calendar of Strang Papers, a detailed typescript overview of the Strang papers at Yale which is unsigned and undated; and Hansen, Klaus J., “The Making of King Strang: A Re-Examination,” Michigan History 46(09 1962): 201–219.Google ScholarRiegel's, Oscar W. fictional Crown of Glory: The Life of James J.Strang (New Haven, 1935)Google Scholar presents a disappointing treatment of Strang's motives.

2. Quaife, , Kingdom of Saint James, p. 138.Google Scholar

3. Strang, Mark A., Diary of James J. Strang, pp. 9, 17, 19, 22.Google Scholar

4. Ibid., p. 32. It is interesting that at the time of the South Carolina nullification crisis of 1832 Joseph Smith also had a similar visionary sense that a major civil conflict was impending. Both Strang and Smith were extraordinarily sensitive to the chief currents of their time and interpreted them as having cosmic importance.

5. In his Calendar of the Strang Papers, pp. 21–28, Dale L. Morgan notes a number of factors which suggest a forgery. First, the letter is hand-printed. No other extant letter ever written or dictated by Joseph Smith was hand-printed. Second, the signature of the letter, written by the same hand as the text of the letter, bears not the slightest resemblance to Joseph Smith's distinctive signature. Finally, the content of the letter itself is extremely uncharacteristic of Joseph Smith's writing style, but it is strikingly similar to a beautiful passage in Strang's own diary for 20 March 1833. For these and a number of other complex reasons, Morgan concludes that the letter was probably a forgery by Strang. I have carefully examined the original “letter of appointment” and fully concur with Morgan's judgments.

6. Morgan, , “Summary Description of the Strang Manuscripts,” p. 17.Google Scholar

7. For a more detailed evaluation of Strang's motivation and career, see Foster, Lawrence, “Between Two Worlds: The Origins of Shaker Celibacy, Oneida Community Complex Marriage, and Mormon Polygamy” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1976), pp. 340–356.Google Scholar

8. Quaife, , Kingdom of Saint James, p. 98,Google Scholar quoting the Voree Herald, 12 August 1847.

9. For Quaife's analysis of the development of Strang's polygamy system, see Kingdom of Saint James, pp. 96–115.

10. The profound impression that Joseph Smith made on Strang and other followers is suggested by the fact that virtually every faction of the Mormon Church before 1850 introduced or attempted to introduce some form of polygamy. Not only the Utah Mormons, but also Lyman Wight, Sidney Rigdon, William Smith, James J. Strang, and others were involved in such efforts. See Shook, Charles, The True Origin of Mormon Polygamy (Cincinnati, Ohio, 1914), p. 194.Google Scholar

11. One of the most detailed presentations of Strang's social argument for polygamy is found in his article in the Northern Islander, 2 March 1854, in which he defends the propolygamy arguments of The Seer, a periodical edited and published between 1853 and 1854 by the prominent Utah Mormon, Orson Pratt. Strang's statements on polygamy which follow are taken from his article in the Northern Islander. An extended footnote to the 1856 edition of the Book of the Law of the Lord, pp. 318–328, presents a similar social argument for polygamy and also draws on Old Testament sources. Interestingly, not a single passage in the original, unamplified edition of the Book of the Law of the Lord (St. James, Mich., [1851])Google Scholar directly supports polygamy. Eloquent though Strang's arguments are, they appear to be almost exclusively an after-the-fact justification rather than an outgrowth of fundamental religious belief.

12. For the practical operation of Strang's polygamy system on Beaver Island, see Quaife, , Kingdom of Saint James, pp. 106–110.Google Scholar

13. Ibid., pp. 107–108, statement of Strang's last surviving wife, Mrs. Sarah A. Wing, in an interview with Quaife in the summer of 1920.

14. Ibid., p. 101, quoting Strang's statement in the Northern Islander, 11 October 1855.

15. Myraetta A. Losee to James J. Strang, 5 May 1846, Strang Papers.

16. Calendar of the Strang Papers, introduction to a letter of Louisa S[anger] to James J. Strang, dated 15 July [1846].

17. Louisa S[anger] to James J. Strang, ca. November 1846, Strang Papers.

18. Louisa S[anger] to James J.Strang, 19 August [1849].

19. Burridge, Kenelm, New Heaven, New Earth: A Study of Millenarian Activities (New York, 1969), p. 162.Google Scholar Burridge's essay, “The Prophet,” ibid., pp. 153–163, is a provocative introduction to the study of such figures.

20. Extremely suggestive for such a line of argument are Kung, Hans, Infallible?: An Inquiry (Garden City, N.Y., 1972);Google ScholarHeschel, Abraham Joshua, The Prophets, 2 vols. (New York, 1969);Google ScholarWallace, Anthony F. C., “Revivalization Movements,” American Anthropologist 38 (04 1956): 264–281;CrossRefGoogle Scholar and Lewis, I. M., Ecstatic Religion: An Anthropological Study of Spirit Possession and Shamanism (Baltimore, 1971).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

21. John C. Bennett, one of the most controversial and least understood figures in Mormon history, played a brief but highly disruptive role under both Joseph Smith and James J. Strang. Under Smith, Bennett had a remarkable eighteen-month career between 1840 and 1842, during which time he rose from relative obscurity to become Smith's right hand man and the mayor of the Mormon city of Nauvoo, Illinois, only to fall from favor because of alleged immorality, be expelled from the church, and write a lurid book blasting alleged Mormon misdeeds, including polygamy. When Strang began to provide a significant challenge to Brigham Young in 1846, Bennett promptly offered his services to the Strangite organization. Once again he rose rapidly to second in command, only to fall from favor and be expelled in 1847 due to his opportunism and brazen immorality. Bennett's career before and after his Mormon interlude shows a similar pattern of restless instability and opportunistic boosterism. Existing secondary treatments of Bennett are unsatisfactory. Important manuscript sources dealing with his activities include the Strang Papers at Yale, as well as the Ralph V. Chamberlain Papers and the Martin Wilford Poulson Papers at the Brigham Young University Library Special Collections in Provo, Utah. The social instabilities in ante-bellum America that could encourage the rise and fall of men like Bennett deserve more thorough investigation than they have yet received.